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Mexicans working in other countries are sending less money home, threatening businesses, stalling construction and choking cash flow to hamlets where as much as half the population works in the United States.

Analysts said stepped-up immigration raids and the slowdown in the U.S. economy accounted for the drop in the payments, which many migrants use to sustain families back home.

The payments, or remittances, have fallen about 2 percent this year to $11.6 billion, the first such drop in more than a decade since reliable records have been kept, Mexico's Central Bank said Wednesday.

And the buying power of this money has been battered by the weakening U.S. dollar, which has lost about 8 percent of its value against the Mexican peso so far this year.